Writing Intimacy into Feminist Geography

Intimacy, expressed through the feelings and sensations of the researcher, is bound up in the work of a feminist geographer. Tapping into this intimacy and including it in academic writing facilitates a grasping of the effects of power in particular places and initiates a discussion about how to access and tease out what constitutes the intimate both ethically and politically throughout the research process. This collection provides valuable reflections about intimacy in the research process - from encounters in the field, through data analysis, to the various pieces of written work. A global and heterogeneous pool of scholars and researchers introduce personal ways of writing intimacy into feminist geography. As authors expand existing conceptualizations of intimacy and include their own stories, chapters explore the methodological challenges of using intimacy in research as an approach, a topic and a site of interaction. The book is valuable reading for students and researchers of Geography, as well as anyone interested in the ethics and practicalities of feminist, critical and emotional research methodologies.

Introduction 1. Muddling Intimacy Methodologically Courtney Donovan and Pamela Moss Section 1: Methodological Challenges 2. An Uncomfortable Position: Making Sense of Field Encounters through Intimate Reflections Maral Sotoudehnia 3. ‘I’m here, I hate it and I can’t cope anymore’: Writing about Suicide Gail Adams-Hutcheson and Robyn Longhurst 4. In the Skin: Intimate Acts in Economic Globalization Maureen Sioh 5. Navigating Intimate Insider Status: Bridging Audiences through Writing and Presenting Vanessa A. Massaro and Dana Cuomo Section 2: Emergent Effects of Including One’s own Story 6. Intimate Creativity: Using Creative Practice to Express Intimate Worlds Clare Madge 7. Writing/drawing Experiences of Silence and Intimacy in Fieldwork Relationships Kacy McKinney 8. Open for Business? First Forays into Collaborative Autobiographical Writing in Extractive British Columbia Zoë A. Meletis and Blake Hawkins 9. Walking the Line between Professional and Personal: Using Autobiography in Invisible Disability Research Toni Alexander 10. Are we Sitting Comfortably? Doing-writing to Embody Thinking-with Kye Askins Section 3: Multiple Aspects of Researching Intimacy 11. Accelerating Intimacy? Digital Health and Humanistic Discourse Courtney Donovan 12. To Hold and be Held: Engaging with Suffering at End of Life through a Consideration of Personal Writing Kelsey Hanrahan 13. Inhabiting Research, Accessing Intimacy, Becoming Collective Karen Falconer Al-Hindi, Pamela Moss, Leslie Kern and Roberta Hawkins 14.Intimacy, Animal Emotion and Empathy: Multispecies Intimacy as Slow Research Practice Kathryn Gillespie Section 4: Analytical Methods as Part of Writing 15. Bearing Witness to Geographies of Life and Death: Intimate Writing and Violent Geographies Samuel Henkin 16. Becoming Fieldnotes Ebru Ustandag 17. Hiding in the Garden: Autoethnography and Intimate Spaces Kathryn Besio 18. Death, Dying and Decision-making in an Intensive Care Unit: Tracing Micro-connections through Auto-methods Pamela Moss 19. Places of the Open Season Sarah de Leeuw Concluding Remarks 20. Intimate Research Acts Pamela Moss and Courtney Donovan

Pamela Moss is aProfessorin Human and Social Development, University of Victoria, Canada. Courtney Donovan is anAssociate Professorin the Department of Geography and Environment, San Francisco State University, USA.